


Slightly Darker Than Rosy Beginnings

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, It went about as well as Samberly's attempts to be helpful, Jack's POV, Mentions of morphine and being drugged, The author attempted to be humorous, The friendship between these three gives me strength, Which gave the author the excuse to make Jack Thompson thinky and feely in places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: In Jack's defense, if he hadn't just been shot nearly to death it wouldn't have taken a botched Catch Jack's Attempted Killer plan in order for him to realise what had happened between Sousa and Carter while he'd been out cold.





	Slightly Darker Than Rosy Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_wonderingmind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_wonderingmind/gifts).



> Happy SSR Confidential! Thank you so much for your wonderful additions to the Agent Carter fandom, a_wonderingmind. It was a pleasure to write for you! I'm not sure this is exactly what you had in mind when you asked for Jack finding out about Peggy and Daniel but... well... I hope it suffices anyway.

Jack had gone to sleep drunk enough times to know what it felt like to be inebriated and dreaming – that state between wild dreams and confusing non-sensible sense where your brain knew it was mostly asleep but didn’t have the ability to pull itself fully into wakefulness. His drunk dreams, as tilt-a-whirl and impossible to escape from as they were, were still tamer and less horrifying than the monsters that occasionally hunted him in his sober dreams. Confusion and colours and half-awake stupidity and noises and the inability to _just wake up, Thompson – just wake up_ were disconcerting and annoying. But they weren’t terrifying. And Jack would take the lessor of two evils any day.

When he finally managed to force himself all the way awake, he knew instantly something was wrong. His mouth felt like cotton and his head felt disconnected from his body instead of pounding viciously in retribution for his latest bender. His body also felt strange – like he was floating even though he knew he was lying on something solid. The wrongness made him try to sit up and assess the situation, but even though he gave the command to his body, it did not obey. He tried again and managed to twitch his shoulders and nothing more. Alarm set in, and he began looking at his surroundings in earnest for the first time. It didn’t take long for him to realise he was not in a hotel, as he’d first assumed, but in a hospital bed.

Turning his head took momentous effort, and his only reward was the sight of Carter in a chair beside his bed, her gun very clearly on display on the end table she was working on. He stared at her, alarm fading to confusion and concern and irritation that he couldn’t demand answers like he wanted. Peggy must have felt him staring, however, because after a few moments of him trying to remember how speech worked she glanced over at him without him having to make a sound.

“Jack,” she said, and smiled at him a little.

He opened his mouth to once again attempt to ask what the hell was going on, and Peggy took his wordless rasping as a different request – she leaned forward, snagged a cup with a straw from the side table, and held it out to him to drink. His first instinct was to refuse the humiliation, but common sense and the sudden realisation that he was _damn thirsty_ made him give in. He wanted to down the whole cup of water, but barely managed seven sips before he had to stop. The reality of his current position was alarming and humbling all at once.

“Wha’ hap’nd?” he managed to force out as Peggy settled back into her chair.

“You were shot. Surgery went fine; you’re on the mend. You can go back to sleep,” Peggy replied, giving him another smile and then returning to her work.

 Jack blinked at her. That was it? That was the only explanation she was going to offer him before simply dismissing him? Jack felt himself scowling. “Like hell,” he bit out, and Peggy glanced up at him in surprise. “I want…full…damn story…Carter.”

Peggy peered at him closely. “Are you actually awake, this time?”

Jack wanted to ask if he had a choice – if he did, he would rather make this all another weird dream. But he didn’t have the words for all of that, so he simply scowled at her as best as he could. Peggy quirked one eyebrow.

“You were shot in your hotel room just before you left to board the flight back to New York,” Peggy said, tone matter-of-fact and detached, which Jack appreciated immensely. “The maid service found you approximately ten minutes after you were shot as they headed to your room to ask you to leave, as they had another guest waiting to check in. You were taken to hospital, and the hotel dialled the last number you called on the hotel phone to attempt to reach people who knew you. They reached Rose, who contacted Daniel and I, and we set about attempting to catch your shooter. There have been no leads so far – nobody saw anybody suspicious coming in or out. We don’t know whether any of your belongings were taken, as we don’t know what you had with you. There have been no further attempts on your life, but we have a guard on you twenty-four-seven for security reasons. And you told us before that you did not see who shot you. Has that information changed?”

Jack shook his head, stopping when it made the room spin. His mind felt like it was absorbing all the information far too slowly; like Peggy was trying to shove a too-large file into a small hole. He struggled to know how to respond, and Peggy sat quietly and watched him very carefully. Jack’s mind grasped at the first thing he understood, and made his mouth blurt, “I told you before?”

“Yes. You’ve been… somewhat awake a few times before. In the beginning we attempted to ask you questions and keep you up-to-date on the case. When it became clear you didn’t remember those waking moments…” She trailed off. If Jack wasn’t trying to figure out a thousand other things, he might have felt guilty for snapping at her vague answers, earlier.

“How long…?”

“Since you were shot?” He let out a noise of assent this time instead of risking the nodding. “Five days.” Peggy then quickly glanced at her wristwatch and amended, “Six days, technically.”

Six days. He’d lost six days of his life. And he’d nearly lost more than that, if his body’s weakness and his in-and-out-of-it state and Peggy’s careful skipping over of his condition were any indication. Hell. He’d almost died. Somebody had come to his hotel room and had… Vernon? Was this because of Vernon? He felt suddenly cold and incredibly wary.

“Read… me what…was present in…my room. So…I’cn check…stolen.”

“I don’t have that list with me, right now. We’ll do it later. Get some rest.”

That sounded like a complete lie, especially because Carter didn’t look him in the eyes as she said it, but he didn’t have the strength to argue. Despite apparently being asleep for six days, his eyelids were already drooping. He hated this. He hated that he –

***

Jack awoke again to a nurse poking and prodding at him and asking questions and telling him, without a smile, that he was progressing nicely. He was too groggy and in pain to tell her where to shove it, and he passed out before she was even fully out the room.

The third time he awoke – really awoke, that was – the sunlight was once again gone and he was once again parched and confused and floaty. This time turning his head rewarded him with the sight of Sousa at his bedside, not as obviously packing as Peggy had been and doing what looked like filing. Sousa was busy enough rustling around and moving things that he didn’t notice Jack’s stare as quickly as Peggy had, giving Jack some time to recall all he could, chew on it, realise once again how useless and weird he felt, and get somewhat irritated and fed up.

“No wonder you don’t have a wife if that’s the expression on your face every time you wake up,” Sousa said suddenly, breaking Jack out of his daze of thoughts.

Sousa offered him the straw in a cup as Peggy had, and Jack was once again forced to drink from necessity. It felt inexplicably but terribly worse, this time, as though having to take it from Sousa was an even bigger humiliation than from Peggy. He forced himself to take nine sips and then had to take a moment to breathe and re-focus, and although Sousa didn’t say a word about it – didn’t even stare – Jack felt defensiveness rise from the floaty apathy and finally loosen his tongue from whatever had held it captive with Peggy.

“Got the short arm…of the stick, huh?” he said.

Sousa raised his eyebrows at Jack, and Jack inclined his head as best he could to the wall clock. Nearly midnight. Sousa shrugged.

“We’re largely unsure who in the SSR are trustworthy, so we’re a little short of hands. And Peggy did it last night, so I took tonight’s shift.”

“Right. Because you…got dumped by…your finance. So you have…nobody at home waiting.”

Jack was honestly not sure who was more surprised that those words had left his mouth – Sousa or him. They had sprung up without passing through his brain at all; lashing acid he wasn’t _actually_ feeling. Sousa blinked at him, completely thrown, and most of Jack wanted to offer an apology.

Instead, what he said was, “It’s not like… _you_ can do much…if somebody does come to kill me.”

The look Sousa was giving him was…odd. Not angry or even hurt but just… Jack didn’t have a name for it. Sousa took a deep, levelling breath and then replied, “Agent Kilmar is right outside the door as well.”

“Outside…huh? You should… be there too, Sousa. Don’t remember… inviting you in.” It was as though something had taken hold of Jack’s tongue. His befuddled brain tried to tell him Vernon had planted something dark – Zero Matter dark – inside of him and it was coming to the fore right then. The anger was irrational. The scorn even more so. And yet, there they were, cloying together to form a deep desire to hurt Sousa – to send him running, sourly defeated – that was taking over everything rational. “Don’t need my hand to be held. Don’t need to be the…freakshow. Get out.”

Sousa stared at him, hard, for a moment, then grabbed his crutch and stood, abruptly. “You’re an ass, Thompson,” he shot over his shoulder as he left.

Jack stared at the closed door, feeling the irrational anger and viciousness drain out of him as inexplicably as they had come. He swallowed hard a few times and then closed his eyes, suddenly feeling hollow and empty. He drifted for a bit but did not sleep, denied the pleasure of oblivion for his sins. And then, suddenly, the door opened again and Sousa limped back in, carefully balancing a cup of coffee in his free hand. He glanced at Jack but didn’t say a word as he took his seat again. Then he rummaged in his pocket and produced a pack of chewy candies.

“Work away at these,” he said, placing them directly in Jack’s nearest hand. “The taste and the chewing motion gives your brain two new things to focus on. It helps stop the morphine making you all…” He paused, made a face and then simply did a weird hand gesture. And, the strangest thing was that Jack _understood_ what that gesture meant. “And for _heaven’s_ sake – don’t choke on them. I’m _not_ sticking my fingers down your throat to save your life.”

Jack stared at nothing and played with the roll of candy in his hand as Sousa went back to filing. Guilt and shame were welling up inside of him, but unlike with the anger from before he could not find any way to claim that they were not _his_ emotions. And as soon as he thought that he realised that he could not divorce himself from his uncalled-for viciousness of before. This was not like in the war – he could not separate himself from his actions and pretend they hadn’t happened. Because Sousa… oh, hell. The whole reason Sousa knew to get him the candy was because _he’d been through it, too_. Jack felt like he was choking on it all; Peggy’s calm facts and Sousa’s surprised face and the floaty feeling and being fed water like an invalid and it was all rising like –

“Are you still awake enough to check the inventory of the things we found in your room?” Sousa said, jerking Jack to the present.

He held onto Sousa’s voice and request like a lifeline. “Yeah,” he rasped.

Sousa got out a file, flipped it open and paged to a certain page. “I’ll read through the list, and you let me know if anything’s missing. And we can go through it as many times as you need, so don’t get huffy. Okay. Three pairs of socks. Two – ”

“Sousa.” Sousa looked up at him in surprise. “I…” Jack toyed with the candy roll, his motions tearing the paper. “I… uh…I…”

A smile tugged on the corners of Sousa’s lips. “Yeah, Jack, because you’re usually _such_ a ray of sunshine.” The dig was gentle. Understanding. And Jack could do nothing but stare and not understand whatever was happening in his chest. Relief. Pain. Fondness. Irritation. “I threw a potted plant at a nurse, once,” Sousa went on, casual-as-you-please. “Now. The list. Three pairs of socks. Two pairs of shoes, including the ones on your feet when you were found.”

Jack, bewildered and with too many things to process, let the matter drop. But although Sousa ran through the list three times, Jack couldn’t think of anything that could be missing. He fell asleep again to the sound of Sousa’s pen scratching against paper, and his last mostly coherent thought was about pardon, and how strange it was that it felt different coming from different people.

***

“ – were here yesterday afternoon and the whole evening,” Peggy was whisper-arguing.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that _you_ now have to do the same,” Sousa whisper-argued back.

Jack cracked his eyes open and found them squaring off at the side of his bed. They were so close that one more inch would have had them touching, and there was a strange sort of buzz to the air that even he could pick up on. Were they having an actual, ugly fight? Had something happened in the week he’d been out of it?

“Look,” Sousa said, softly, as Peggy crossed her arms in defiance. “I’ll go home now and get some sleep this afternoon. Stop in to check the leads. And come and relieve you this evening.”

Even as he was speaking, Jack could tell he would lose that argument. Peggy’s body language was spoiling for a fight, and Jack had enough experience to know that Carter always managed to win, no matter what methods she had to do in order to do so. And if she and Sousa were really fighting, then the gloves would be off. It was like she hadn’t left the war –

“The file,” he realised in a sudden rush. Sousa and Peggy both jumped at turned to look at him in surprise. “Your file, Peggy. It wasn’t on the list.”

“What file?” Sousa glanced between the two of them in confusion.

“Masters had Jack investigate me,” Peggy replied, her arms still crossed. “And Jack found a file of my supposed wartime activities. They’re all bogus – I wasn’t even in half the places they claim, let _alone_ doing the awful things they say I did. You took it to your hotel room?”

“I was gonna take it back to New York. To check it out.” A flash of hurt went across Peggy’s face. “Not like _that_. To see who was trying to frame you.” Peggy’s surprise melted to something soft, and Jack hastily added, “Since you’re under my employ, and all. And so I can’t let… you know… that reflect… badly… on… me…” He trailed off.

There was a beat of silence in which Jack felt incredibly awkward and couldn’t meet anybody’s eyes. The sooner they took him off this damn morphine and gave him his tongue back, the better.

“But if it’s fake, then why did somebody shoot Jack just to get it?” Sousa asked, dragging them back on track.

“Either somebody doesn’t know it’s fake, and wants it as leverage. Or somebody knows it’s fake, and didn’t want it being investigated, fearing that it would point back to its author,” Peggy surmised slowly.

“Great,” Jack said, dryly. “That helps us out immensely. I’m sure we now have a hundred better ideas on how to catch this guy.”

“We may not know much more, but every bit helps,” Peggy argued.

Trying to catch the man who had tried to kill him and who had almost succeeded. The man who had stolen the file Vernon had asked him to get. The file that almost turned him on Peggy and Sousa. Vernon, who had used him. Who was rotten to the core. Who had made good SSR agents follow in his twisted footsteps until Sousa wasn’t sure which of his own men he could trust any more. Anger, frustration, guilt, defensiveness, shame – it was too damn difficult to know which one to feel and which one to act on. It was all swirling like a fair ride turned to the max.

He had to get out of there. Away from Sousa and Peggy and their quiet continued discussion. But his body would not let him. His sins would not let him. For the first time, he realised with a sudden hollow laugh that hurt like _hell_ and had Sousa and Peggy looking at him in alarm, Jack Thompson could not run away.

“You should get right on that detective work,” he said, hollowly. “Both of you. Go. Get out.”

Peggy and Sousa glanced at each other. Sousa shook his head. Peggy sighed.

“Jack,” she said, and then paused. She looked at him until he met her eyes, and then shook her head. “You’re an idiot,” she said, and there was… _fondness_ mixed with the exasperation.

Sousa had frozen beside her, and was staring out into space with something dawning in his expression. “Jack, you’re _not_ an idiot,” he said.

Peggy blinked at him. Jack narrowed his eyes. “Thanks? I think?”

“Well, people don’t think so, anyway,” Sousa amended.

“Thanks,” Jack’s tone was flat. “I _think_.”

“And a non-idiot,” Sousa went on, “would not only have one copy of a very important, evidence-rich file.”

“But I did only have one copy of that file,” Jack blurted, before he realised the implications of his confession. “Look, I –”

Peggy cut across the damage control of his mental prowess he was trying to do. “And that person would hide the second copy of the file somewhere incredibly safe,” she said, suddenly looking excited.

“And if Jack let us know where the second copy was,” Sousa started.

“Then we would, of course, move it to the safety of the SSR,” Peggy continued.

“And if it just… so _happened_ to slip to the entire SSR where the file was,” Sousa picked up.

“Then any dirty SSR agents would jump at the chance to grab the file from such a convenient location,” Peggy finished. She beamed at Sousa, who grinned back.

Jack glanced between them, the feeling that he was missing something coming back in full force. “Are you two done finishing each other’s sentences?” he snapped.

“Daniel, that’s brilliant,” Peggy said, ignoring Jack completely.

And Sousa… did Sousa _blush_? Jack opened his mouth to say something sarcastic or teasing, or maybe to try and figure out the niggling assumption that was playing somewhere at the back of his brain, but the two in front of him seemed to shake themselves and turned back to business so abruptly and smoothly that he was left with only enough time to help plan the trap for his killer.

***

“Are you seriously looking at my cards?” Jack snapped at Sousa.

Sousa gave him a dry look. “Yes, Jack. I’m so determined to beat you at a half-assed card game in your hospital room that I’m peering at your hand.” He rolled his eyes. “Just play, Thompson.”

“I’ve seen your lack of poker face – cheating is the only way you could win.”

“We’re playing _Go Fish_ ,” Sousa said, exasperated.

“Still need strategy, Sousa. Everything in life needs good strategy.”

Sousa rolled his eyes and then rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and Jack had been watching him over the last hour enough to know it wasn’t just his needling that was causing the reaction. Sousa and Peggy had put their plan for a trap into motion as soon as they’d finished discussing it, cobbling everything together with the handful at the SSR they knew without a doubt they could trust. Peggy had stayed at Jack’s side while Sousa made a show of taking the ‘second M. Carter file’ to the SSR vault, and then had stayed in Jack’s old room with the blond-wigged dummy Rose had produced from _somewhere_ as Jack was wheeled secretly away.

“Just in case they come here to finish you off before getting the second file,” Peggy had explained, tucking the dummy in.

Sousa had entered his new hospital room moments after the nurse had settled him and left, and he’d been beside Jack’s bed, gun at the ready, ever since. Which meant that he had yet to go home after staying up at Jack’s beside the whole night. And it was showing in his body language and in the dark circles under his eyes. Perhaps it was just some sort of weird empathy that was making Jack take stock of Sousa’s exhaustion – he himself was feeling the pain from his bullet wound a lot more than he ever had.

It took Jack a moment more to realise he was realising those things. “Hey…” He frowned. “I can… I’m playing cards. I can focus. Did…?”

“The nurses turned down your morphine a bit,” Sousa said.

Jack opened his mouth to ask if Sousa had anything to do with it, then shut it again. Logic had, it seemed, somewhat returned. And he was grateful. “Well. Hurts like a bitch but… I’m glad.”

 It was the closest to a thanks to the question he didn’t want to ask that he could give. Sousa’s mouth twitched somewhat, and Jack was satisfied that _had_ Sousa had anything to do with it, his comment would have been received as it had been intended. If not, it was simply small talk. No harm done.

“Give me your twos,” Jack said.

“Go fish,” Sousa replied.

“Don’t lie to me, Sousa. I know you’ve got a two in there.”

Sousa shot him a look. “The only reason you’d know that is if you looked at my cards.”

“You looked at mine first!”

“I did _not_.”

“Just give me your damn two.”

“I don’t have one, Jack.”

“Prove it.”

“I’m not –” Sousa inhaled sharply. “I’m not going to show you my hand.”

“Then how do I know – ”

“I _cannot_ believe –”

“ – cheating – ”

“It’s _Go Fish_ , Jack! For th– ”

The door to the hospital room rattled as somebody tried to turn it. Jack and Sousa both turned toward it at once, Jack’s mouth suddenly going very dry. All of a sudden, he could remember what it was like to look down the barrel of a gun. And, all of a sudden, getting shot was no longer just an abstract notion. Sousa stood up wordlessly, taking out his gun. Jack’s hands shook so much he had to put down the cards as Sousa made his way carefully to the door. There were sounds coming from outside; scratches and clicks that Jack thought he should be able to trace but couldn’t quite figure out until the door swung open with sudden violence, and he realised it had been somebody picking the lock.

The door slammed straight into Sousa, knocking him square in the forehead and sending him half sprawling backwards. Sousa’s name got caught in Jack’s throat as Sousa caught himself, quickly aiming the gun at the doorway.

“ _Samberly_ ,” Sousa thundered, and Jack turned to find a very surprised looking scientist in the doorway. Sousa said a word Jack hadn’t been sure he knew. “What are you _doing_?”

“Chief,” Samberly said, sounding as surprised as he looked. “Your head is bleeding.”

“That tends to happen when you hit somebody with a door,” Jack put in, dryly, trying to cover how bad he was still shaken.

Sousa dug out a handkerchief and pressed it to the bleeding cut on his forehead, still glowering furiously. “What are you _doing_ here, Doctor Samberly?” he asked again, voice clipped.

Samberly seemed to shake himself. “Right! Yes! I know who it is, Chief!”

“What?”

“The SSR mole! I know who it is!”

“What are you…? How do you know about…?” Sousa spluttered.

“I overheard stuff,” Samberly said, waving a hand. “And then I got thinking. And I made everything line up. Chief, I studied _all_ the evidence and there’s one person it all points to.” Samberly scrambled into the room and shut the door behind him, radiating with excitement. “And so I just laid my own trap. I told them you wanted to see them, Chief. They’re heading up here right now!”

“The person who tried to kill Chief Thompson is coming up here, to where Chief Thompson and one armed SSR agent is, right now?” Sousa repeated, his tone darkening to something dangerous with every word.

Samberly looked startled. “I… oh. Right. Yeah. I didn’t think about that.”

“Did you _really_ hire him?” Jack asked, trying to focus on the complicated look on Sousa’s half-hidden-by-a-handkerchief face instead of the absolute panic that was blooming in his chest.

“Samberly,” Sousa snapped. “You need to get reinforcements here. Go – ”

There was a knock on the door, and everybody froze. Samberly reached for the handle.

“ _Don’t open the door,_ ” Jack and Sousa hissed at him in unison, and Samberly scuttled away like he’d been burned.

Sousa let go of the handkerchief so he could aim better, but Jack could see the odds stacking up against him in his expression. Jack furiously gestured at Samberly to pick up the chair – maybe he could make himself somewhat useful.

“Daniel?” Peggy’s voice called from outside.

“Peg?” Sousa called back in surprise.

“What’s going on? Are you alright?” She turned the handle and stepped inside, expression confused and concerned. “Samberly said – ”

“There she is, Chief!” Samberly yelled, dancing a little closer as he hefted the chair into the air. “Quick! Quick! Get her before he gets away.”

Jack, Peggy and Sousa all stared at Samberly in flabberghasted incomprehension.

“What – ” Peggy yelped and ducked a wide swing from Samberly’s chair. “What in the _blue blazes_ is going on? Doctor Samberly?”

“I know it’s you, Carter! I know you’re the one who shot Chief Thompson!”

“What?” Peggy said.

“ _What_?” Sousa and Jack echoed.

“For the love of – Samberly! _Put down the chair_ ,” Sousa snapped at him.

“But Chief -!”

“Put it down, or I’ll shoot _you_ ,” Sousa snapped again.

Samberly, looking like a severely kicked dog, slowly lowered the chair.

“But it’s _her_ , Chief,” Samberly protested.

“Carter did not shoot me, Samberly,” Jack said, not quite sure whether to be amused or frustrated.

“As many times as I have fantasised shooting that man – or indeed doing him other bodily harm – I have never actually done it,” Peggy agreed.

Jack wanted to point out that she’d beat him up that once, but then thought better of revealing such a secret where Sousa could hear it and use it against him later. Sousa had lowered his gun and was leaning rather heavily on his crutch, looking severely hacked off and exasperated. Jack would have sympathised, knowing exactly what Sousa was feeling due to having Peggy Carter under his control. But the sympathy just couldn’t come when he realised how many times Sousa had been the other half of his headache, too.

“Doctor Samberly,” Sousa said, in a very, very, very put-on voice of calm. “Would you _kindly_ explain how you reckoned that Agent Carter is Chief Thompson’s shooter?”

Samberly muttered something that sounded like he was sulking, and Jack saw Sousa’s hand tighten around the gun for a split second. Then he inhaled, very deeply, exhaled slowly, and repeated the question in an even tighter voice.

Samberly looked at him glumly for a moment and then began his story, directing his words to the chair he’d set down on the floor in front of himself. “Carter was supposed to be on a flight home to New York,” he said, “but she walked out of the Agency and told Rose she’d _suddenly_ decided to take ‘vacation days’.” He did the air quotes and then, as though suddenly spurred on by the remembrance of his air-tight logic, started looking everybody in the eyes again, voice confident and speech speeding up. “I heard her say it to Rose – Agent Roberts – as she left. She told her – that is, Carter told Rose – to call Chief Thompson and tell him she’s taking vacation. And then she left the SSR. By herself. And then Rose and I had a conversation and as I was leaving I heard Rose call Chief Thompson and tell him that Carter was taking vacation.

“And then not an hour later I’m back for the end of the conversation and Rose gets a call that Chief Thompson is in hospital after being shot, and Rose calls you, Chief, to tell you and somehow Carter is one of the first on the scene even though Rose _called_ the Starks and the butler said she hadn’t been home. So the conclusion is obvious. Carter heard Chief Thompson had her file. She left the SSR by herself, fabricating a story about vacation so she could miss her flight. She went to Chief Thompson’s hotel, shot him and then walked around the block to hide her file and the clothing she used as a disguise. She’s good at disguising, if you’ll recall. And she was right there to rush to the crime scene and be one of the first responders, thinking that would make her void of suspicion.”

“You see – I told you your rule-breaking and solo missions would come back to bite you in the ass one day, Carter,” Jack said into the slightly stunned pause that followed Samberly’s passionate monologue. “I was _there_ and his version still makes sense to me.”

Peggy shot him an exasperated look as Samberly made a noise of triumph and pointed at her, looking at Sousa imploringly. Sousa took another very deep breath.

“Samberly… Okay, yeah, well done on the deductive reasoning, because that _would_ make sense. _Except_ ,” Sousa said, loudly, covering whatever the good doctor was starting to say, “that it’s not what happened. Chief Thompson has said it wasn’t Carter –”

“Chief Thompson could have been mistaken!”

“And Carter was with me the whole time,” Sousa finished.

Samberly blinked at him. “What?”

“I was first on the scene because I was with Chief Sousa when Rose called him,” Peggy said, voice oddly gentle. “And I caught a ride with Chief Sousa to the crime scene.”

Samberly stared at her for a moment. “But… but no… You left after her, Chief. So she could have – ”

“Samberly, you were there in the front with Rose when I walked out. It was barely five minutes after Carter left. I just had to file the Isodyne case reports and then I was outa there. Remember?” Sousa wasn’t working so hard to stay calm; his voice was almost as gentle as Peggy’s, now.

“Yeah… yeah I was there. You said you were going home.” Sousa gave a little ‘and?’ shrug. “Well… I mean… It was the middle of the morning. I thought you were going home to sleep. What was Carter doing going over to your house in the middle of the morning?”

Jack’s brain made an automatic assumption of work or something Carter-esque crazy, but his own explanations came to a screeching halt as he caught the looks on Carter’s and Sousa’s faces.

“Uh… we were…” Sousa said, suddenly pinking.

“Dis…discussing matters,” Peggy finished quickly, trying to seem nonchalant.

They were both _damn spies_. Jack had seen Peggy lie so convincingly he’d believed her many a time. He’d seen her refuse to crack under pressure when he himself folded. And so, in that moment of her awkward stuttering and blushing and obvious refusal to look at Sousa, all the lights came on for Jack at once. And everything from her asking for vacation to the strange tension to their sentence-finishing-and-idiotic-grinning suddenly made perfect sense.

“You guys were shacking up, weren’t you?” he said, the delight in his voice palpable. Both of them turned glares on him that shouted _yes_ louder than any words could. Jack crowed with laughter, stopping only when it sent a knife of pain through his chest. “I don’t _believe_ it,” he cackled, watching them fidget and blush with growing amusement. “You booked out of work to go and neck with a fellow agent at your place. Danny Boy, you dog.”

“Doctor Samberly,” Sousa said, voice once again very controlled. Samberly was looking mildly disgusted and still a bit confused. “Please return to the SSR and aid the agents there. Thank you for your input.”

“Right, Chief.”

 Samberly shot him a side-eye as he left and Sousa sighed again before turning fully towards Jack’s bed for the first time. His mouth was open to say something, but Peggy caught sight of his oozing wound for the first time and her eyes widened.

“Daniel! What on earth happened?”

She marched over to his side and started inspecting the wound, and Jack keenly noticed the way she was much gentler and much less coolly detached as she usually was. He found himself grinning even wider as Sousa explained, sounding a little embarrassed by the whole affair.

“It’ll heal right up if you kiss it better, Marge,” Jack said, cheerfully. Both of them glared at him again, and he just smiled wider. “Aww. Look at you two. Coming to each other’s aid. One united force. You’re probably holding hands behind the bed so I can’t see. Are you going to start wearing matching shirts to work?”

“I’m going back to the fake Thompson that _can’t talk_ ,” Peggy announced. “Before we have to call a doctor up here because I finally _have_ done him bodily harm.”

“Send that doctor up anyway – I’m not sure I’ll be able to help myself,” Sousa said, and she flashed him a smile that startled Jack because of how few walls there were surrounding it. “Don’t,” Sousa warned as Jack took another breath. “Just… don’t.”

Jack heeded him, but kept grinning, watching as Sousa near-collapsed in a chair. The observations of his tiredness returned, and Jack felt some of the glee slipping. Maybe he would go easy on Sousa for tonight. The man was injured and exhausted and trying to keep him from getting shot again, after all. Besides – Jack had a feeling that he’d have plenty of time to take digs at the two of them. If Sousa’s torch for Carter had lasted as long as it did, even Carter in all of her impossible glory wouldn’t be able to douse it out quickly. And he’d seen the way she’d _casually_ asked after Sousa after he’d been transferred. Theirs was going to be a long-term sort of thing. A good thing. And Jack blamed that line of sappiness on the morphine – that, and all the fuzzy goodness he felt thinking of the two of them blushing and holding hands like teenagers.

But, before the truce of the evening…

“You’re welcome,” he told Sousa, who was trying to do something about the gash on his temple that was starting to slow its bleeding.

“For?” Sousa asked, warily.

“Making you and Marge happen. I _was_ the one who sent her out here, you know.”

“Yeah, thanks, Thompson, we owe it _all_ to you,” Sousa said, sarcastically.

Jack grinned at him. “Just glad you know it. So when I call in those favours…”

Sousa groaned and told him to go the hell to sleep, and Jack innocently closed his eyes, still grinning. Something inside of him felt lighter, which seemed impossible when he’d thought he was about to be shot at again for the second time in a week. He’d been… if he had to admit it to himself, he’d been pretty damn terrified. But then Carter and Sousa… There was something that smelled like a beginning in their inevitable get-together. Something that felt like the knowledge he was finally free of Vernon. Something that felt like seeing the end of that canon and the rift. Something that defied his fear and the lurking threat and the Arena Club members and his father and the rotten SSR agents. And – he was totally on the meds and half asleep, that was the only explanation he had for this thought – there was something soothing with knowing that while he’d been dying, Carter and Sousa had finally started living. And that they’d never once left his side since.

He had no idea what the hell it all meant. But it was peaceful. And it let him fall asleep to the sound of Sousa absently shuffling cards beside his bed.

 


End file.
